Work on Sunny days
by kimicatdemon
Summary: As Mihile adjust to a life of a knight, he starts to realize bad habits developed by others and tried to find a way to fix them... Even if he has to take the stupid route.


The sun light was strong again. It wasn't strong in a harsh manner that made it unbearable, but it brightened the area up nicely. The grass and trees of Ereve were certainly a sight to behold, nothing short of fascinating. It was certainly nothing much compared to the farms Mihile himself had grown up on.

While it wasn't hard for him to personally transition, he did kind of miss his previous life of farming away at the chicken all the time and being careful not to wake his pet dog up, lest he run and attack him for that day. Thanks to this life style beforehand, he had gotten really creative with how to cook eggs. He could even make certain meals that specialized in eggs. It was pretty repetitive at first, but he managed to get by, and those he cooked for these days weren't that bored at all. They loved his cooking.

….Well…One of them did. Cygnus would gladly chomp down on her meals and have talks with Mihile about herself and Maple world. He could tell, she really had a deep interest in the world. He really wished that one day he could help her have the world she wanted. The world she spoke of to him sounded really peaceful and a happy place where everyone could flourish to live their own lives how they choose.

Then there was Neinheart. Oh boy, where did Mihile begin describing the guy? Sometimes he would be the friendliest guy around, giving useful advice and great pointers, showing his collective wisdom. Other times, he was a nightmare to be around. All he would do is yell, scold, and scorn every misstep Mihile took. Then he would go right back to being his somewhat friendly (yet still instructive) self. He couldn't figure him out.

Regardless, figuring him out wasn't the issue. Mihile noticed on many occasions that Neinheart barely touched his food and would even work late hours into the night, sometimes not sleeping at all. Mihile didn't lie to himself, every time he picked up a barely touched plate from Neinheart's desk, he would question if he even ate.

"Do not worry about me." Neinheart remarked. "I haven't moved around much, so I'm not that hungry." He would state without looking up from his papers, "Now if you will excuse me, I'm a little busy. Although, I may have a new mission for you here soon. Please return in about an hour."

Mihile walked out calmly and met with Cygnus outside. He was easily able to cheer up with her smile. It was hard not to. The two would sit by Shinsoo and talk about any past events or future ideas they may have. It really was a lot of fun for Mihile to have someone to listen to him talk, even if he felt like he sounded like an idiot at times. She would just sit by and listen, laughing and agreeing with him. Needless to say, Mihile was glad he became a knight. He treasured the position, but more importantly, he treasured the empress. He really wished that one day she could spread her smile to everyone in Maple world and not just a small amount of knights.

After an hour, Mihile stood up. "It's been about an hour it seems…" Mihile looked at the young empress, "Neinheart said he would like to speak with me, so I'll be heading off for now. "

Cygnus looked at him in shock and the let her face relax to a calm smile. "Okay." She spoke in her childish voice.

Mihile walked up to Neinheart's office and saw it twice and messy as it was before. "Ah, Neinheart, are you oka-?"

"Yes, yes… " Neinheart snapped a bit, "I am fine, just a little busy, however, my hunch was correct."

Mihile stood up right, ready to receive his next orders. "Yes sir?"

Neinheart stood up from his desk and flipped some papers over. He pulled some out and handed them over to Mihile. "Here." He remarked, "Our investigator over in Kerning has requested these records. I've corrected them and laid them in order. Do tell him that I would prefer they come back in the way the showed up." Neinheart said, but his voice held little hope for this.

He turned down and sat down at his desk again, "You're dismissed."

Mihile relaxed his pose a bit and watched as Neinheart continued to work for a small moment. "That really can't be healthy. He's covered by paperwork." He thought to himself. He shook his head and walked off.

It would be pointless to try to argue with him…

Mihile headed off of Ereve and made his way towards Kerning. It wasn't a hard run, but a bit long. That and Kerning was a bit of a shift from Ereve. He always felt like he stood out in the town.

As he walked the streets looking for Matthias once again, he came across a rather…. Uniquely dressed woman.

"Hey there boy." She spoke in a raspy voice, "Lookin kind of sharp there." She circled around him slowly. Clearly, she was checking him out. "You busy?"

"Ahh…" Mihile started up, "I am actually looking for a friend of mine. He's pretty big, has a beard, a feathered hat?"

"Oh him?" The woman spoke, "I didn't realize a man like that would have friends as handsome as you." She rested herself on his shoulder and started to whisper in his ear, "How about you ditch out on that guy and come with me for a bit?"

"Ahhh!" Mihile jumped back, "Gee, that is awfully nice of a local to offer, but, you know, business is business and , ahahaha, well, look at how late I am running, wow. I really gotta go. Bye!" Mihile had never felt his legs run as fast as they did in that moment. Even when he was training against actual monsters that would eat him alive, he never ran that fast. "T-That woman …she's worse than a regular monster!" he shivered from behind a wall. Great. Just great. Now he needed to find a way to find Matthias quickly before that happened again.

Luckily he was in luck as Matthias was making another usual commotion at the usual Chinese takeout restaurant. "What do you mean I have worked up my tab?"

The owner shook his head, "I mean what I said. You can't eat until you pay up."

"Hey now, listen here, I don't get my next check for another week! You gonna starve me until then?"

The owner stared Matthias down, "Business is business, even in food."

Just as the air looked like a fight was going to break out, Mihile jumped in ,"H-Hey Matthias…."

The scruffy looking guy turned around, "Oh! Mihile! Perfect!"

Mihile knew exactly where this was going.

"Look, this pal here won't let me eat! I'm starving! How am I supposed to work when I can't get any food?"

Mihile sighed, "We sent you a rather large check, you should have spare change… plenty of it."

Matthias looked up and began scratching his chin, "Ah, yeah, well, you know, this town has a great gambling environment; even the penny slots are great!"

"Oh boy…" Mihile sighed, "We have a gambler on our hands." He shook his head back, "If you can't find a way to survive through the money we give you, you can't ask for more money. If Neinheart found out you were gambling the—"

"Oh no, no , no ,no…. I would NEVER think of telling someone like Neinheart that I gamble. Aw geez, do you know what he would even DO?" Matthias worried.

This is true. Neinheart was still pretty young but he already had a terrible reputation about being ruthless towards anyone he deemed as a failure. Mihile had witnessed a few failures get fired and scorned on the way out about how useless they were and how they would never be good for anything. Mihile really worried that one day Neinheart would take it too far. But alas, what could he do? The only one who could change anything was Cygnus, and she was too young to even try…

Mihile laughed a bit, "D-Don't worry, I won't tell him. But, you do need to figure something out…" He walked up to the Chinese food owner, "I am sorry about my comrade's behavior before good sir, however, it seems this town has rubbed him off in an unpreferable way." Mihile started, "And due to circumstances, he can't exactly leave the town quiet yet. Is there anyway there can be an arrangement for him to get some kind of food when he doesn't have any? He's a strong man and could have a lot of uses beyond getting information."

The owner looked at Mihile then thought, "Well, I could use some help on delivering the meats from the air ship to here. If he can do that, I suppose I can spot him some food here and there, however, this only happens once a week and he will have to pay the rest of the time. I can't keep feeding him free food all the time."

Mihile grinned and took a deep bow, "Thank you sir. You have my upmost thanks."

The man looked at Mihile. "I still can't believe it…" He said walking back, "I must be getting soft. Before you know it I'll start looking after run away kids or something… I'll grab him a meal for now."

Mihile and Matthias watched as the man walked off behind the doors, "All right!" Matthias cheered, "Thanks pal! Without you, I'd be a dead man!" He grabbed Mihile in a headlock and began rubbing his head.

"OW OW OW!" Mihile yelled out, "Geez Matthias, not so hard, that hurts!" Mihile was released and stood up, "Anyway, you know I only come down here on business, so…" He handed over the papers, "Neinheart says he wants the back in the order they came in, so if you could try, he would be grateful."

"SURE SURE!" Matthias said as he flipped the pages around, already messing their order up.

"It was worth a try…" Mihile claimed to himself. "Well, I only came to give the reports to you. DO you have anything to report back?"

"Naw, not yet." He said, "I'll keep my eyes peeled if I see anything out of the ordinary. These records just track some monster history behavior so I wanted to get a good idea of what I needed to be lookin out for." He looked at Mihile, "So tell Neinheart I'm workin hard, okay?"

With a slight nod, Mihile left. As soon as he stepped out, he realized how out of place he was again… Luckily he knew exactly where the exit was and made a bee line there without stopping, avoiding the previous track from before.

Back on the ship to Ereve, Mihile relaxed a bit. Kerning City… it was certainly a place where not just anyone could stay. You had to be like them in order to get by it seemed. He had heard from Cygnus about the Dark Lord and about some dark mysteries looming around, but he never figured it would be that scary to go to. Matthias was probably a lot edgier than what he looked like in that feathery suit. "I wonder what made him become a knight anyway…" Mihile thought.

When Mihile returned to Ereve, he looked over by Shinsoo. The empress was… gone? Mihile wanted to jump and search immedeatly, but Shinsoo seemed too peaceful… "Ah.. excuse me Shinsoo…" Mihile started.

The beast opened her eyes slightly and looked at Mihile in the face, "Yes, warrior of light? What is the matter?"

Mihile laughed a bit from talking to Shinsoo. He wasn't used to talking to something that big and powerful yet. "Ahaha… I was…just wondering if you knew where the empress was at? Tha-That's all…"

Shinsoo looked at Mihile and closed her eyes again, "it's good to know we have such a diligent knight, always wishing well for the empress." She started, "She went to go see Neinheart last I recall."

Mihile nodded and ran towards Neinheart's office. He knocked on the door and listened. He heard small footsteps run up and open the door. Mihile looked down and saw Cygnus. Her face was calm as usual. "Oh Mihile!" She grinned, "I'm glad you came back safely!" She gave him a great big welcome back hug.

Mihile gave her a light pat on the head, "I'm glad to see you are well, your majesty." He smiled at her. He looked up and saw Neinheart. His hair was all frizzed up and is eyes looked fatigued. Mihile wondered if he got any rest at all since he had left. Mihile stood up straight, "I finished the assignment Neinheart. Matthias said he had no news to report."

Neinheart looked up at Mihile. He looked at Cygnus and let out a weary smile, "You majesty, can I have a moment with Mihile? It's regarding his next assignment which may be taking place as soon as three days."

Cygnus looked at Neinheart and smiled again, "Okay!" She left and went to go rejoin with Shinsoo again. Now sounded like a good time for a nap anyway.

Neinheart and Mihile watched her leave. Neinheart waved his hand a bit "Go on." He said, "Close the door."

Mihile closed the door quietly, hoping that Cygnus didn't hear the clicking noise and feel left out.

Neinheart stood up, "Good work on delivering those reports. I made copies of them before sending them off because I felt we may never see them again if Matthias has them." He looked through some books on the shelf, "However, it seems someone in Magatia found something of interest. We currently have no records of whatever it is they speak of… They have strange robots running around such as a humanoid, but this is apparently something completely different."

Mihile was silent. He watched as Neinheart continued on.

"Naturally, the first job we should get done is seeing if this real or not. Considering the rivalry there, it's very well possible that this is a rumor made to scare one side from the other." Neinheart let out a deep sigh, "But considering the research the town is founded on, any sort of activity there must be heavily monitored so that we—"Neinheart stumbled a bit in his walking path, "Ah…crap, that-!" He stuttered out before jumping back up, "Maybe I should sit…" he muttered to himself quietly.

Mihile perked his voice up, "M-maybe you should rest? You don't look too goo—"

"I will decide when I can rest Mr. Mihile." Neinheart sharply remarked, "There is work that needs to be done and it's not going to get done any faster if I sleep now."

Mihile watched Neinheart sit down. The man was clearly tired but determined to stay awake. "Back to what I was saying…" He took a sigh as he pulled some papers up, "I'll have to look through this and make sure it's not a rumor. But that may be a day or two, so be on call."

Mihile watched Neinheart lay the papers back down and take a sigh.

"That is all Mr. Mihile."Neinheart stated. "I will simply let you enjoy the rest of the day." He looked back down to his work and started up again.

Mihile watched Neinheart work again. Mihile wanted to turn around and talk with Cygnus, but, there was that side of him that didn't want to leave. Neinheart looked awful. There was no denying it. He looked like he would pass out at any given moment, but he was just working like it was nothing. He didn't even eat that much to boot. Mihile stood tall and faced Neinheart, "No."

Neinheart looked up, "Hmm? No to what?" Confusion masked his face for a change.

"No. I can't enjoy today. How can you expect that?" Mihile started up. Oh boy. He knew he should have stopped himself, but he couldn't. Neinheart and Cygnus were like his family now, and if there was one thing he hated, it was seeing ill family when they could be helped. It was like prolonged suffering.

"What do you mean? Did something happen in Kerning?" Neinheart sat up straight.

"No! Nothing happened in Kern- Well, something happened, but that's not the point!" Mihile yelled, "Look at you! When was the last time you slept in an actual bed?"

Neinheart shook his head and went back to work, "I'll be fine Mihile." He started up, Worry about yourself."

Mihile looked at Neinheart. Neinheart had really just brushed off his own condition like it was no big deal! "This guy…." Mihile was faced with two options. Leave and let Neinheart work or…

Clearly the other choice would be the choice he took. He was aware he wasn't the brightest person in the world and made a lot of stupid choices, but sometimes, stupid choices made him feel better.

He walked up to Neinheart, turned his chair around and had him face him face to face. "You. Go to bed now."

Neinhear blinked, "Excuse me, Mr. Mihile? Last I checked, I am a year or so older than you and I am certainly higher ranked than you. You have no authority to—"

Next thing Neinheart knew, he was lifted by the knight. "H-HEY, WHAT IN ALL OF EREVE'S NAME ARE YOU-?" Neinheart struggled free and landed on the ground. He stood back up and had quiet an angry face glaring at the dawn warrior "Mr. Mihile,This joke has gone on long enough anymore and I'll -"

"You'll what?" Mihile shouted, "Fire me? Go ahead! I don't really care that much!" He slammed his hand forcefully on Neinheart shoulder, "But what I do care about is the health of those I care for. You look sick. It's bothering me. You even skipped the past three meals I made. You don't sleep, you don't eat, all you do is work, work , work. You can't do anyone any good that way Neinheart!" Mihile was having his turn scolding the one that usually did the scolding.

Neinheart's face grew even angrier. "And what? Lose time so that we can lose informati—"

"The information will still be there. Get some sleep, now."

Neinheart kept a forceful stare at the dawn warrior, he was angry enough to actually dismiss him from the knights and even ban him from Ereve, but before the words could even start to come out…

WHAM! Neinheart's body fell against the wall. Neinheart tried to see what happened when he felt it. The sinking pressure of everything he had been ignoring had crept up on him and hit him like a hammer all at once. He was too tired to even hold his body up straight. Suddenly he felt himself get a bit dizzy from the lack of food. Just as he thought he was going to fall on the ground, a strong pair of arms held him up. And he knew exactly who it was too.

"Need some help there?" Mihile's voice calmly spoke.

Neinheart looked at his face and turned away with a growl, "Why can't you just let other people do their job?"

"I'll let them do their job when it doesn't work them to death." Mihile remarked. "I am guessing you realize you're at your limits too?"

Neinheart didn't say a thing. He just laid there in Mihile's arms, unable to move much beyond his head. "Fine…" He slipped out, "I will get some rest, but you better believe you are going to get some pay back for this when I wake up."

Mihile chuckled a bit and walked Neinheart to his room. "You're crazy Neinheart. Just relax. I now you're worried and so am I, but working yourself like this just worries others."

Neinheart just listened the whole way there, carefully trying to walking himself with Mihile as support.

When they reached his room, Mihile helped Neinheart lay down on his own bed. As he laid him down, he realized that Neinheart had already passed out. "Well I guess you get to sleep in your clothes…" Mihile laughed a bit.

Neinheart would remain asleep for a whole day before waking up again. When he woke up, his body felt sore and full of aches. He looked over and saw some small sandwiches and strange little cookies set up on a plate. "Who do they think I am?" He said as he bit into them, "Santa Claus?"

After finishing his light meal, Neinheart got up slowly and made his way to the office. Inside, he saw a sight he would never forget. Cygnus and Mihile were working together to try to do his job.

"Ah, Do you think this is the record we need?" Mihile asked Cygnus.

"Dunno." Cygnus remarked back. "It has the same name on it! It must be it!"

"Right!" Mihile said, "Let's see…"

"Pray do tell…" Neinheart openly remarked, "What do you two think you are doing?" He asked to the two of them.

Mihile and Cygnus looked up. They both smiled a bit, "hey! Neinheart!" They both said.

Cygnus ran up to Neinheart, "Mihile said you were tired and laid down for a bit! I didn't expect you to sleep so long!" She looked at him, "Did you get my lunch?"

Neinheart shook his head in disbelief, "Yes your majesty, I got it." He looked up and Mihile and walked over to his desk. "And what trouble have you bee—" Neinheart stopped. He didn't recognize his desk at all. All the papers were a complete mess.

"Cygnus and I were trying to see if it was a rumor or not and-!" Mihile tried to retort back.

"No, no… I understand." Neinheart remarked, "I'll take it from here. You got… rest or something."

Mihile smiled a bit, "You feelin better?"

Neinheart just stayed quiet.

"Not much of a thank you guy, is he?" Mihile laughed. He felt Cygnus tug at his arm, "Mihile! Since Neinheart is back up, I wanna show you something!" She said, "Come look at these flower Shinsoo found!"

Mihile was dragged out by the small empress as she eagerly ran along. Neinheart covered his face with his hand, letting a small smile creep out.

Maybe for once he would admit defeat and let Mihile just have his victory. But he could finalize that decision based on how long it took him to find the end to this rumor.


End file.
